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The Group summit of the world’s eight most industrialised nations (G8) -the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, France, and the United States- was being held in Gleneagles, Scotland, from July 6 to 8, 2005. Since the fate of Africa has been discussed, the moment seems well chosen to question the impact of those States’ policies on African development, or rather its striking non-development. If the average income on the African continent is under one American dollar a day, as stated by the president of the Commission For Africa’s French Committee, Jack Lang, in Le Monde published on July 1 st, do the governments represented at the G8 have a responsibility for this situation? Can the questioning of their policies towards Africa change something?
There is no doubt that “anti-globalisation” communication specialists will answer “yes” to that question. According to them, countries in the North maintain a relationship of exploitation with those in the South through a globalised free market. This accusation of globalisation has become so widely accepted that very few commentators even bother to check its validity, be it its destructive nature or even its mere existence. Everything is now about controlling this globalisation phenomenon, the relevance of the statement being tacitly taken for granted. The governments of industrialised countries have indeed a share of responsibility in the African disaster, but the reasons put forward and the anti-liberal answers following from this are fundamentally mistaken.
First of all, it cannot be said that Africa is included in a phenomenon of trade globalisation, however widespread this phenomenon is elsewhere. As Jack Lang reminds us, today Africa’s share in world trade is 2%. How can such a large and populated continent have such a small share in a free-market world? Secondly, the term “free market” should not be misunderstood. There is free trade between countries when citizens of one country can trade freely with those of others, without political borders separating them being an obstacle. Customs taxes and rules regulating the importation of standardised products are obstacles. The higher they are, the more there are, the less we can talk about free trade. Yet, it is quite obvious that American and European governments’ attitudes are very protectionist towards Africa.
This statement can at first seem exaggerated when we know that EU customs taxes are on average 5%, according to Oxfam. Nevertheless, this average is not quite representative. What matters in weighing the level of protectionism of EU policies towards Africa are customs taxes and other restrictions imposed on imports on which Africans have a comparative advantage, mainly agricultural products but also textiles. EU customs taxes on agricultural products are on average 20%(1) and rise to 250% for some specific ones. This is how the Common Agricultural Policy has implemented EU member state preference, in other words protectionism.
While everybody agrees on the fact that an embargo impoverishes the people of the sanctioned country, the disastrous consequences of protectionism foisted on a country against which one “protects” oneself are still hardly understood. They are however the same: different words, same reality. On either side of the borders people are deprived of the advantages of international division of labour. African people are prevented from taking advantage of their relative superiority in the agricultural sector. Moreover, such distortion is made worse by subsidies given to European farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy, allowing them to sell their surplus outside Europe. Not only African people are deprived of access to the European market but subsidies also additionally lower their products’ prices by flooding them with European products that would not have been otherwise profitable. African development needs these protectionist systems to be dismantled as quickly as possible.
(1) Europe’s Double Standards: How the EU Should Reform its Trade Policies with the Developing World, Oxfam Briefing Paper 22, April 2002.
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